Pakistan gets three new islands

New Delhi: Pakistan has just got three brand new islands -- thanks to a major earthquake.

When the shock of the temblor subsided Tuesday, people living in the coastal town of Gwadar were stunned to see a new island in the sea.

That's not all. Two other islands have come up along the Balochistan coast.

"The island near Gwadar is about 600 feet in diameter and has a height of about 30 feet," Muhammad Moazzam Khan, technical advisor at WWF - Pakistan, told IANS over telephone.

He said "gas was coming out" of the island, which primarily consists of "stones and soft mud".

The two islands near Ormara town are small. Khan said the islands had a diameter of about "30-40 feet and a height of about 2-3 feet". "Gas is also coming out," he said.

He said that while some islands which form suddenly "stay on", others gradually fade away. He explained that the islands were formed following the massive earthquake that rocked Balochistan province Tuesday.

The death toll in the 7.7-magnitude earthquake has reached 348, and a total of 20,000 houses were destroyed. This is not the first time islands have formed off the Pakistan coast.

"In 1945, two big islands had formed near the coast. One was two kilometers long while the other was 1/2 km long," said Khan.